Blokhaus Founder Talks NFTs on 'Floor is Rising' Podcast

Blokhaus founder Mark Soares appeared on the ‘Floor is Rising’ podcast last month, to discuss his background and why he made the move into blockchain and Web3 in general, and Tezos specifically. Mark expanded on the challenge of explaining NFTs to brands, and what makes corporate and creative audiences for NFTs so different. The conversation also touched on early Tezos NFT success story Hic et Nunc, and why its resurrection is a great example of how decentralization can keep good ideas alive.

You can find extracts from the conversation with hosts Sabre Tooth and Kizu below, and you can listen to the entire podcast via the embedded link at the top of this page.

On public skepticism of NFTs:

[…] There’s this period of skepticism for two reasons from the mainstream audience. Number one is that there’s a lot of hype in terms of people selling for 60 plus million dollars and all the other projects are accumulating a lot of value very quickly. […] Then there was a wave of skepticism […] related to the energy impact of a blockchain. […] Of course, there’s a carbon footprint to everything. If you’re alive, you’ve got a carbon footprint, but people really started scrutinizing that.

On what makes Tezos a great platform for NFTs:

There are three things that make Tezos attractive [for NFTs]. Number one is the low transaction fees, which are really, really important. […] Number two is the energy-efficiency story […]. Number three […] is the whole reason for Tezos being what it is, [what] makes Tezos really special, and that’s the on-chain governance, which allows [Tezos] to self-upgrade and evolve.

Now you wouldn’t think that applies to NFTs, but actually, […] the recurring theme when discussing NFTs with very large global brands has always [been] what happens if the chain forks? Because if the chain forks, you end up with two NFTs instead of one, and then if that chain forks, you end up with two of those. […] And that right there just causes them to say, ‘wait, I don’t don’t want that’.

Obviously Tezos can also fork, but the beauty of it is that it does not have to. And that has ended up being one of the key reasons why the Red Bulls of the world, the McLarens, Manchester United etc., select Tezos for their NFT activities.

On how artists and brands think about NFTs differently:

The corporate camp is more driven toward utility, […] they’re looking at it and saying, ‘Can I gamify it? Can I create a bridge to the user directly and engage with them directly?’ And it becomes a really powerful mechanism for brand engagement. In that category of NFTs, what you’re selling […] is future engagement. You’re committing to doing something special for the user later on.

Then you have the artist community, which really started the whole NFT movement and they want to preserve the authenticity and the creativity of the artwork. And, and I think many of them don’t want to like add too much utility or even consider it because they want it to be art.

I feel like the two camps have to coexist and you just have to educate each one or at least engage with each one and solve problems for each one. I don’t think there should be tension between the two.

On Hic et Nunc’s birth, death, and rebirth:

I believe [Hic et Nunc] is the first true Web3 use case that actually shows the strength of Web3 and why it’s really unstoppable. Hic et Nunc was started by a brilliant developer from Brazil. It had this kind of grunge feel […] there’s a very unique quality to it. […] And so this thing gets built and really, really fast becomes the biggest platform by volume. It was just crazy to see the number of NFTs that were being created.

And then […] the founder decided that he no longer wanted to continue the platform […] Now the interesting thing is because of the way that Hic et Nunc had been built, was all open source and available. Any team could pick it up and redeploy it. And they did it in less than 24 hours. Basically, as soon as it was turned off, it was reactivated.

[…] It proves the case for Web3 and it proves why you need to have blockchain-powered platforms, so there isn’t a central entity or intermediary […] You really can’t kill it. […] it goes to show how passionate the artists are on Tezos that they won’t let this thing fade away.

Source: Floor is Rising

Related links: #

• Hic et Nunc (on Objkt.com)
• Blokhaus.io